[mdlug] What Intel Giveth, Microsoft Taketh Away

[Michael Corral]

2007-11-17, Monsieur Clinton V. Weiss a ecrit:
> On Nov 17, 2007 3:27 PM, Brian Hurley <brian at detroitindustrial.org> wrote:
>> While software bloat is arguably bad* its definitely not restricted to MS
>> alone. I've read more than one benchmark showing that OO is much worse at
>> both speed and memory use than even the currently uber bloated MS Office.
>
> I have to agree with this 100%.  Last May I wrote a complex
> spreadsheet generated in JExcelAPI (Java) that was pure formulas -

o_O

> Excel would open the spreadsheet and calculate all formulas in just
> shy of 10 seconds, meanwhile displaying a progress meter such that it
> was obvious to the user that it was "working."  OpenOffice, however,
> would open with a solid white screen.  After several seconds a
> progress meter would somewhat display near the bottom and the user
> could see OO crawling through the formulas.  Finally, after about 60
> seconds, OO would finish and the rest of the screen would catch up.

So let me get this right. You're complaining that OpenOffice was not
as robust as Excel in opening a complex *Excel* spreadsheet with tons
of embedded *Excel* formulas, and this for a spreadsheet that was
created with a library (JExcelApi) that was designed to "read, write
and modify Excel spreadsheets" (<http://jexcelapi.sourceforge.net/>)?
All I can say is: wow.

> I'm a huge fan of open source, however, I'm also a huge fan of using
> the right tool for the right job.
   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Then why didn't you use a library that creates *OpenOffice* spreadsheets
instead of one that creates *Excel* spreadsheets?? That would have been
the proper way to use OpenOffice. Your complaint would be like someone
complaining that Excel doesn't open QuattroPro spreadsheets as fast as
QuattroPro does.

> OpenOffice, as much as they'd like
> to claim, is not yet the right tool for heavy spreadsheet usage.

Sure it is. And many people use it for that every day. You just weren't
using it properly. That's your fault, not OpenOffice's.

> OpenOffice is *NOT* Excel.

Exactly. :) And that's a good thing. I sure wouldn't want OpenOffice
to calculate 65535 as 100000, as Excel 2007 does:
<http://it.slashdot.org/it/07/09/24/2339203.shtml>
Better hope your Excel formulas don't calculate that. :p

Michael